WOOTTON

[Transcribed and edited information from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868]

"WOOTTON, a parish in the hundred of Redbornestoke, county Beds, 4½ miles south
of Bedford, not far from the Bedford and Bletchley branch of the London and
North-Western railway. The surface is varied, but in no part hilly, and the
soil a strong clay. Wootton House is the seat of Coventry Payne, Esq., who
is lord of the manor. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Ely,
value £300, with 21¾ acres of glebe. The church, dedicated to St. Mary,
contains monuments to the Monoux family. The chancel has recently been
repaired. The Wesleyans and Baptists have chapels. The charities produce
about £50 per annum."

The 1868 Gazetteer description of the following places in Wootton
is to be found on a supplementary page.

The church of St. Mary is a noble edifice, chiefly in the Decorated style, but with portions of Early English and Perpendicular work, and consists of chancel, nave, aisles, porch and an embattled western tower, with spire, contnining 5 bells: the aisles have been lengthened westward in modern times, and the west window is stained: the chancel and aisles retain piscinc&aelig;, and the former is separated from the nave by an ancient screen of carved oak in the Perpendiculnr style, restored in 1896 at a cost of £70; the organ was presented by Miss Neale; the font, pulpit and other fittings are all modern : the church contains many tablets and inscribed slabs to the Monox or Monoux family, who in the 17th and 18th centuries resided at Wootton House, including memorials to six of the baronets, and one to Lieut. Monoux, killed in the Monmouth insurrection of 1685 ; there are also memorials to two former vicars of the 18th century: the porch, of finely carved oak, is a reproduction of the ancient porch: the ch
urch was thoroughly restored about 1860 by the Rev. F. Neale, then vicar, and the chancel rebuilt by the late Sir Coventry Payne bart: in 1890, a new east window was placed in the chancel to the infant son of Sir Philip Monoux Payne bart. The organ was restored and enlarged in 1898, the cost exceeding £170. The church will seat 250 persons. The registers date from the year 1562.
[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898

Non-conformist

There is a Baptist chapel, erected in 1836, with 100 sittings, and a Wesleyan chapel, built in 1862, with seats for 200 persons.
[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898]

There are three charities, one, amounting to about £50 a year, arising from land, is applied one half
for the benefit of the poor and one half for the repair of the church: the second charity is a rent-charge
of £6 a year on land, for the benefit of the six oldest widows; there is also Farrell's charity, producing
£2 15s. yearly from funded property, for the benefit of the poor. Wootton House, plesantly seated in a park
of 70 acres near the church, and the property of Sir Philip Monoux Payne bart. is now occupied by Col. the
Hon. Robert Villiers Dillon. Wootton Hoo, built in 1884, is the residence of Major Charles William P. Warner.
Sir P. M. Payne bart. who is lord of the manor, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Miss Polhill, of Blunham,
William Lnyton Lowndes esq. and Charles Robert Wade-Gery esq. M.A. of St. Neots, Hunts, are the principal
landowners. The chief crops are wheat, beans and barley. The soil is a rich strong clay; subsoil, gravel
and marl. The area is, 3,783 acres; rateable value, £7,066 ; and the population in 1891 was 1,253.
[Kelly's Directory - Bedfordshire - 1898]